Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer networks and, more particularly, to efficiently maintaining metadata stored among a plurality of solid-state storage devices.
Description of the Related Art
As computer memory storage and data bandwidth increase, so does the amount and complexity of data that businesses daily manage. A distributed storage system may be coupled to client computers interconnected by one or more networks. If any portion of the distributed storage system has poor performance, company operations may be impaired. A distributed storage system therefore maintains high standards for data availability and high-performance functionality.
Various types of metadata are maintained for the distributed storage system. For example, the metadata may consist of at least mapping tables for storage virtualization that allows access to logical storage without end-users identifying physical storage, mapping tables for deduplication operations, and mapping tables for relating virtual sectors at a specific snapshot level to physical locations. A supported address space may be limited by a storage capacity used to maintain the various mapping tables.
Various software applications provide a means of allocating space on mass-storage arrays. At times, operations are started to reduce the supported metadata. For example, new storage space may be allocated for storing one copy of identical records of mappings or a youngest record of multiple corresponding mappings. The distributed storage system utilizes the records stored in the new allocated storage space. The previous storage space may be retained for an appreciable amount of time for possible error recovery or removed once the new storage space starts being used. However, as the size of the metadata significantly increases, the amount of storage space simultaneously used for the old records of metadata and the new records of metadata may approach address space limits.
In view of the above, systems and methods for efficiently maintaining metadata stored among a plurality of solid-state storage devices are desired.